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| I run an older 90's vintage 2500 series IH truck with the large floaters, I bought it at a decent price, but did / still do all the mechanical work on it, so you dont pay me to be good, I'm good for nothing.. ;-)
Anyhow, I use an Ag Leader Versa, Luv it. just load, plug in a Rx and drive. My bed is a New Leader L3020, holds about 10-12 ton, give or take, but thats a pretty good load.
I can load lime and gypsum with a JD510C backhoe, but with the large floaters, I have to load both sides to keep the load even, but no problem for me.
Fertilizer...mine range from 70 lbs acre - 250, so that will determine how many acres you can cover, but I mostly do a batch per field, for billings sake mainly. Just for rough figuring, I usually figure about 50-60 acres per hour, I know many on here can do it faster than that, but I am not doing it commercially either.
Lime or gypsum, at around 1 ton per acre average...I would say with adding in some road and load time...about 40 acres in 3-4 hours ??? give or take
The fastest speed I run is about 12-14 mph, I could go faster, but I like the better coverage I get at 10-12. I have the older 3 paddle spinners, but they set high, so I can spin fertilizer at 60 ft decent, lime and gypsum I spread at 30 ft. I can turn right back in 30 ft, but its tight, so with GPS, I start and do the perimeters like I would spray, then start on one side of field and go every other swath, then come back and catch the missed ones.
With the mapping it works so nice, so you can tell where you have been or run out. It was a learning curve to use the dry command, no different than any spray controller or GPS stuff, if I can run one, anyone can run one. My landlords like the maps and VRT technology, and some like to ride along in the " monster truck ".
My truck paid for itself easily in 2 years, and I like the ability to spread when I want to spread. I have done cereal rye with it too with decent results, but that works best when blending with some fertilizer so it acts as a carrier and allows it to spin out and spread better.
Ag Leader is kind of Raven based, so I have a Raven 660 controller I can use as a backup, never had to though.
As far as web, mine is a double spaced slat, I am going to weld in slats for every link, mainly for the fertilizer, as if you watch behind me when I am spreading low rates I can see the "spurting" from in between the slats as the web is turning, honestly, I have never seen a yield issue or difference in crop because of it as the spinners fan it or even it out, but I am sure it would be better. Lime or Gypsum, it wont matter. I had a rubber belt on my old truck which was great for fertilizer, but would suck for lime when it was wetter. Buddy's had a rubber belt over slat, which was really good for fertilizer, but just ok for wet lime....just some of our experiences here.
A G4 spinner / spreader would be nice, hopefully in next year or so I'll add and repaint this one, hoping to put a Peterbilt on the front eventually, as the cab is getting weak on this one.
I looked hard at a pull type, and still will the next time around, but what I really like is the road speed, whereas my tractor would slow me down. Another think I am going to do is make or fab up a tank, and spray my burn down with the same rig, same way faster road speed, and better flotation.
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0406101949a.jpg (77KB - 114 downloads)
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Spreader Truck
